The Best Books and Audiobooks of 2021

Set in the Sunshine State, this collection shines a light on the lives of Black women and girls. Brilliant characters grapple with estrangement from church and family, the enthralling bonds of young best friends forever, and revenge. LitHub says, “Every story in this book feels soaked with heat and blood and wanting and a slice — sometimes more — of danger.”

The long-awaited sequel to Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Sympathizer” does not disappoint. Set off the tourist path in the immigrant neighborhoods of 1980s Paris, the nameless narrator continues his quest for revolution, but finds himself caught up in the capitalist market of drug dealing. “The Committed” is a serious triple threat: a look at the aftereffects of colonization, funny satire, and a gripping crime thriller.

“Infinite Country” reflects our current global moment: tense, cut off from each other, but with a glimmer of hope. This powerful story moves readers back and forth in time, across borders, and among anguished family members separated by the sacrifices they’ve made at the altar of the American Dream. The propulsive plot hooks you from the first chapter when teenage daughter Talia escapes from a juvenile detention center in the mountains of Colombia, racing to make a flight to the U.S. before she loses her chance to reunite with her family.

Nella’s excited when another Black woman joins the very white publishing house where she works. Her delight at no longer being the only Black employee takes a sinister turn when threatening anonymous notes start showing up on her desk. Is her new coworker an ally or an enemy? This is a timely, funny, and creepy thriller with hints of “Get Out.” Author Harris and producer Rashida Jones are adapting the book for a series on Hulu.

After discovering potentially serious health issues with their unborn baby, a couple makes the agonizing decision to terminate their first pregnancy. They then make the equally agonizing decision to try again. The second baby comes to term, although not without complications. This achingly moving novel about parenthood told from the father’s perspective is a treasure.

Death-defying adventure meets the supernatural in this daring novel about Two Feathers, a young Cherokee woman who performs as a horse-diver at an amusement park in Jim Crow-era Nashville. When strange things start happening around the show, Two Feathers plunges into solving the mystery along with an unforgettable cast of characters.

This poetic debut — told memorably in second person — revels in the beauty of Black art while exposing systemic racism, grappling with police brutality, and condemning the toxic expectation that young Black men mask their emotions. When two young artists meet in a London pub, can the pull they feel toward each other withstand the forces threatening to keep them apart?

Irish actor Byrne’s memoir is less about stardom and its outlandish secrets, and more about all the haunting incidences in his personal life (a priest’s sexual assault, a friend’s drowning) that shaped him and his honest and refreshing worldview. He proves his writing is on par with his fantastic acting skills.

Over the course of her 96 years, entertainer, activist, and humanitarian Tyson co-created the Dance Theater of Harlem, launched an award-winning and iconic career on stage and screen, married jazz legend Miles Davis, and won the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And these are just a few of the stories of her incredible life that she shares in her inspiring memoir.

Fitness fads have never been this fun. Bechdel (“Fun Home”) has always been obsessed with exercise crazes, and her passion is infectious. Her new graphic memoir takes a look at past workout trends decade by decade, but in Bechdel’s capable hands, the journey is about so much more than getting in physical shape. A joyful look at all the wacky ways we try to work out the meaning of life and how we fit in it.

A moving memoir about growing up Black and gay in rural Ohio. Framing his life story around the Gwendolyn Brooks poem “We Real Cool,” Broome brilliantly calls out destructive stereotypes about masculinity. A heart wrenching, intimate look at an outsider's search for a space to be his authentic self.

As the daughter of a United Nations official, Owusu’s childhood was nomadic, never allowing her family to put down roots. An absent mother, the death of her father as an adolescent, and a series of family secrets and lies left her unmoored; depression threatened to drag her down further. Her move to New York and subsequent rewriting of her own identity result in this deeply compelling memoir of self-fulfillment in a sea of turmoil.

Gay’s personal trauma has shaped her life and work, including her 2017 memoir about her own sexual assault, “Hunger.” In her Scribd Original, “Writing into the Wound,” Gay unpacks the aftermath of “Hunger,” exploring the public reaction that reopened her wounds once more. The result is a skillful guide to sharing, processing, and healing from trauma through writing. “To change the world, we need to face what has become of it,” she writes. “To heal from a trauma, we need to understand the extent of it.”